Fastest Daytona 500 Qualifying Laps 1982 – 2025

Daytona 500 Qualifying is tonight. Forty-five drivers will compete for 41 spots in this year’s race, but we won’t know who earns those spots, or where all but two cars start today.

This year, the two fastest of the 36 charter cars will know they start from the front row on Sunday. The two fastest of the eight ‘open’ teams will also be able to sleep tonight knowing they’ve secured their spots.

So here’s a look at the history of fast laps in Daytona 500 qualifying sessions since 1982.

A 200-mph-average lap at the 2.5-mile Daytona track corresponds to 45 seconds.

Fastest Daytona 500 Qualifying Laps 1982 – 2025

The graph below shows the fastest laps run during qualifying from 1982 to 2025. In years where there were multiple rounds of qualifying, I selected the overall fastest lap, which may not be the pole lap in some case. But I was interested in pure speed for this graph.

I am plotting lap time, which is the measured quantity. So faster is down on the graph and slower is up.

Remember that NASCAR changed the size of the restrictor plates for different races. When speeds got too high, the plate holes got smaller, all in the service of keeping cars on the ground.

Lap times ranged from 42.783 seconds in 1987 to a high of 49.680 seconds in 2022. But — with one exception in 2015 — we haven’t seen lap speeds faster than around 45.8 seconds since 1988.

1988 marked the introduction of speed-limiting restrictor plates. Average qualifying speeds in 1987 reached into the 210 mph range, which leads to aerodynamic instability in the car. That’s a fancy way of saying that the cars become airborne more easily. The best qualifying lap went from 42.783 seconds in 1987 to 46.434 seconds in 1988.

NASCAR changed the size of the restrictor plates for different races. When speeds got too high, the plate holes got smaller, all in the service of keeping cars on the ground.

2001 was the first race for which NASCAR mandated shocks and springs. Teams had been customizing shocks to get the rear spoiler out of the air and decrease drag. That made the cars bouncy and prone to bottoming out — the underside of the car hitting the track. Drivers had a harder time controlling the car and also suffered a very rough ride. NASCAR’s changes increased drag and thus lap times.

NASCAR introduced the Gen-5 car in 2008. You’ll notice that after each change that increased laptime, teams gradually got more speed. Until the next change.

What the heck happened in 2015? The fastest lap time dropped by 1.44 seconds relative to 2014. Remember knockout qualifying? This wasn’t a single-car speed. Knockout qualifying didn’t last long, in part because there were crashes during qualifying that necessitated a red flag. It didn’t last long at superspeedways.

The 2022 season introduced the Gen-7 car. Qualifying lap times rose from 47.056 seconds in 2021 with the Gen-6 car to 49.680 seconds with its successor. But that time keeps creeping lower and lower each year as teams find new ways to get speed from the car.